


drop dead gorgeous

by askmeaboutmyoctopustheory



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Beauty Guru Klaus, Eventual Romance, Good Brother Diego Hargreeves, M/M, Post-Canon, Pseudo-Incest, They Avoid The Apocalypse, YouTuber Klaus, idfk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-14 05:59:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18046835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/askmeaboutmyoctopustheory/pseuds/askmeaboutmyoctopustheory
Summary: Klaus finds a hobby to stay sober, Diego gets roped into it





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had the idea and ran off with it
> 
> the kliego discord made me do it
> 
> this might turn into a jenna marbles AU because that text thread had me ROLLING
> 
> hang out with me on twitter @_AMAMOT

Klaus frowned as he looked at his homework for his general cosmetology class. He was supposed to execute and photograph a smokey eye for tomorrow’s morning class. Allison was out of town filming, and Vanya would not be ok with having that much makeup on even for a short time. Even doing the complex braids yesterday was too much for his much simpler sister. Klaus shoved the paper in his bag and walked towards the house. He had enrolled in beauty school after the team had prevented the apocalypse and agreed to stay together at the house and support each other. He wanted to stay sober and find something he could be good at. He had started a youtube channel and signed up for cosmetology classes.

 

He pushed open the gates and walked through the still-destroyed foyer, following the smell of Grace’s cooking to the kitchen. He had used Grace as a model for some of the hair styles he had to perfect for homework, but makeup didn’t perform well on her synthetic skin. He snagged one of the paninis that were sizzling on the hot plate and wandered back upstairs where he had heard shouting from the courtyard. Predictably, Luther and Diego were sparring on the grass with Five watching and looking bored. The latter nodded lazily and Klaus’ arrival made Diego lose focus for a split second, leading to a sickening crunch and Two was on the ground a second later. Five and Klaus winced in distaste as Luther extended a hand to the fallen brother.  

 

“Ugh. I think that’s enough for today, Luther” Diego groaned, flipping himself over to reveal a swollen and bleeding lip. He smiled a bloody half smile at Klaus. “How was class?”

 

“It was good. We’re moving onto eye makeup looks. I just don’t know how I’m going to do my homework.” Klaus smiled back. “I’ve got to do a colored smokey eye for tomorrow and Allison’s not here to let me practice on her.”

 

“Do it on me.” Diego said as if it was the most obvious thing ever. He shot a glare at Luther for good measure and then walked over to his more flamboyant brother. “When do we start.”

 

\------

 

A half hour later Diego sat in his brother’s well-lit room staring at the tubes and pencils and pans of color laid out on the desk in front of him. Klaus was washing his hands and getting a towel to wipe the brushes on, so Diego gingerly picked up a tiny pot of color in front of him. He opened it to have the shimmery substance erupt over his black clothes.

 

“Careful there, can’t disrupt your brooding aesthetic with glitter.” Klaus said from the door of the bathroom as Diego looked up sheepishly. “Can I film this for my youtube? I like to make sure I document all my looks.”

 

“Uh-Uh sure? You have a youtube channel?” Diego looked up at the taller man who was fussing over his camera and lights.

 

“Um. Yeah. It’s called DeathByEyeliner. None of the others but Allison really know about. It’s nothing big.” Klaus replied, his eyes a bit fearful as he silently pled Diego to not tell the others.

 

“Klaus….You know we all support you no matter what? Right?” Diego’s voice was soft as he shook the other man gently. He only received a small smile in return before Klaus sat down in front of him and turned the camera on and began working his magic with eyeshadow. Klaus completely lit up in front of the camera, talking about the different products, explaining his steps and the processes he used for blending. After about 45 minutes of feeling like a human canvas, Diego felt his face get sprayed with a sticky mist that made him cough.

 

“Oh and  _ I’m _ the dramatic one.” Klaus shook his head before turning to the camera. “That’s all I’ve got for you ghosties today, let me know what kind of look you’d like me to film next. Remember to stay Drop Dead Gorgeous!”

 

Diego watched in wonder as Klaus meticulously cleaned up the area and started photographing his eyeshadow for class the next day. He had never seen his brother so excited about something since...well since Ben died. He looked around, wondering if their dead brother was lurking only to get thin fingers snapped at him to pay attention to the camera again.

 

“How uh. How long have you been doing this stuff?” Diego gestured to his face, clearly this was not the work of a beginner. “How many people watch your videos?”   
  
“You know as well as I do that Ali’s eyeliner started going ‘missing’ when we were all 12 and I never really lost interest.”   
  
“And are you, like, good? This looks amazing but I don’t know anything.”   
  
“I guess? People like my videos.” Klaus looked sheepish.   
  
“How many people?” Diego asked again, looking expectant.

 

“Uhh my last big milestone was 250k subscribers…”   
  
“KLAUS!?” Diego shouted, causing the other to yelp. “You have a quarter of a million people watching your videos and are scared or ashamed to tell your family? That’s incredible!?”

  
“I guess. I just didn’t know how the others would react…”   
  
“You mean Luther.” Diego fumed, his suspicion confirmed at the way Klaus pointedly avoided answering. “Well. I think you should tell them and Luther can answer to me if he has a problem with it.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oops this is shorter than i thought it was OH WELL 
> 
> tw for brief homophobic language in the form of a youtube comment
> 
> i know canonically the technology isn't the same as modern tech but FUCK THE CANON

 

The comments section of Klaus’s most recent video was exploding with comments about Diego.

 

_ OMG is that his boyfriend? _

 

_ Ahh you two are so cute together! _

 

_ OOh he’s cute! I ship it!! _

 

_ Fuckin fag _

 

And so on. Klaus frowned smally, he was glad there was a sudden surge of subscribers and comments from his most recent video, but he wasn’t dating Diego. How did all those people get the same wrong idea? He opened his twitter and his mentions were full of threads showing screenshots and old tweet conversations showing how ‘obviously’ in love he and Diego were. Someone had even seen that they had the same tattoos and speculated that they were secretly married. Klaus wasn’t blind, he knew his adopted brother was attractive. Yeah they might’ve messed around when they were teenagers but that was just because the were isolated from other people their age. Looking at the edits of Diego with ‘heart eyes’ in his twitter mentions made his heart flutter unexpectedly. 

 

“Don’t do it to yourself, ‘laus” Ben interrupted his internal thoughts. 

 

“I wasn’t-”   
  
“I recognize that face. Don’t give in to the internet shippers. I know you two still have that soft spot but I wouldn’t fabricate emotions just because of pictures on the internet”

 

Klaus knew his dead brother was right, and he had to get going to class anyway. He shoved his phone in his pocket and shoved some of his makeup into his school bag.

 

\------

 

“Heeeeeey, Diego?” Klaus’s voice rang from his doorway, causing him to stop twirling a knife in his hands and fling it at the ceiling.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Uhh would you want to film with me again?” Klaus scratched his neck awkwardly. “I need to do a full face look today for class, I can do it on myself but it’s better practice on someone-”   
  
“Yeah” Diego jumped up. “No problem”

 

Klaus felt that same twist in his heart as he looked at Diego in his makeup chair, eyes closed peacefully and waiting for the setting powder to bake properly. He had done a glitter cut crease on Diego, highlighted his cheeks, and accentuated the scar in his brow to rough up the glittery look. He stood back and admired his work so far and decided to finish it off with a subtle lip color. 

 

“Hey Di?”

 

“Hm?” Diego’s elongated eyelashes fluttered open.

 

“Can you open your mouth like you’re saying ‘oh’ for lipstick?” 

 

Diego complied and Klaus struggled finding an angle that made it easy to apply the color to the other’s lips. He crouched under his light and braced one hand on the arm of his makeup chair, leaning over Diego’s face until they were inches apart. There was no mistaken that the heavily made up brown eyes flickered down to Klaus’s own chapped lips. 

 

Makeup clattered to the floor as Diego pulled the lanky man onto his lap, limbs flailing as he pressed their lips together. Klaus made a surprised noise before leaning into the kiss, his legs bracketing Diego’s thighs on the small chair. Fingers were running through his hair and smugly thought ‘ _ fuck that, Ben’ _ before running his tongue over Diego’s lips. He wormed his tongue into Two’s mouth and clawed at his short hair, feeling equal fervor in the return kiss he was receiving. They pulled back and Klaus rested his forehead on Diego’s and they both burst out in giggles.

 

“Oh.” Diego said breathlessly.

 

“Oh shit! My camera is still on!”

 

\-----

 

After they had finished filming Klaus’s outro and cleaned up, Diego laid in Klaus’s twin bed watching him edit the video. He held his arms around the small waist and watched him make cuts and add captions explaining his process. Diego tried to distract him by pressing little kisses onto his side, only to be swatted away until the video was at last uploaded. Klaus allowed himself to be pulled over backwards until his back was being poked gently by the leather harness encasing Diego’s knives.

 

“You gonna do a ‘boyfriend tag’ video next?” Diego said teasingly.

 

“Are you my boyfriend now?” Klaus flailed and twisted in Diego’s arms to face him.   
  
“I-I wa-was. Um. I want to be.” Diego sputtered out, avoiding eye contact. He felt a small kiss on the corner of his mouth and bony fingers turning his head to look at the wide green eyes.

 

“Are you sure? I want this too but I don’t just want it to be something we do just for the hell of it.”

 

“Yes I’m sure.” Diego leaned up to kiss him again. “I’ve never been so sure.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ok i'mSORRY this shoulda been one big chapter with the last one but oof i'm trash

That evening at dinner, Klaus sat across from Diego, who still had full glam makeup on. The other siblings had just taken to leaving an empty spot next to Klaus for Ben to sit and accepted that often Klaus would talk to the thin air. But tonight, the lanky man seemed lost in thought and Luther looked confusedly between Diego’s makeup and Allison who had just come back from shooting. She just shook her head and signed to Vanya, leading to further Luther’s confusion. Five looked on from the head of the table with an air of amusement. Klaus suddenly stabbed the table with his knife, standing up abruptly much like Five had all those years ago.

 

“I have an announcement.” His eyes flickered to Diego, who gave him a tiny nod. “Several actually.”

 

“Go on then” Five chimed in, an amused smirk on his face like he knew exactly where this was going. He probably did, honestly. Allison smiled encouragingly at Klaus and Luther just furrowed his brow and gestured to continue.

 

“Well. You all know I’ve been taking classes at the beauty school.” He paused as they all nodded and smiled at him. “I’ve uh. I’ve also been making youtube videos about makeup. And my channel just passed the 300k sub mark.”   
  
Beside him, Ben blew a soundless party horn(‘where did you pull that from?’), while Allison and Vanya cheered a bit. Five even raised his eyebrows in gesture to signify that he was impressed.

 

“That’s great, Klaus.” Luther said with a nod, still a bit confused why this was a big announcement.

 

“Another thing.” Klaus blushed deeply. “Um. I have a boyfriend.”   
  
“WHAT!?” Allison and Luther both shouted in unison while Vanya simply tilted her head in confusion. 

 

“Are you all blind?” Five just laughed. He got up and took his plate to the sink, clapping Diego’s back and muttering something the others couldn’t hear before teleporting away.

 

“I think that’s my cue.” Diego shoved himself up, reaching across the table to hold Klaus’s hand. “Yes, we’re idiots but we’re happy.” He shot a death glare at the other siblings, daring them to say anything cruel.

 

“Congrats guys.” Vanya broke the silence with her soft voice. Their hands relaxed over the table as they let out a sigh of relief. Luther and Allison both nodded and smiled.

 

“We’re all happy for you.” Allison said in confirmation. 

 

Klaus sat back down, still holding Diego’s hand across the table. The callused hands squeezed his own and he felt a surge of warmth from number Two. 

\---

 

Later that night, Diego shoved his bed down the hall to push against Klaus’s in his room. After an hour of flailing and elbowing each other, Diego finally nodded off with one thin arm holding close to the other man’s side. Klaus stayed up, still finding it hard to fall asleep without something to dull the voices in his head. He scrolled through his phone, looking at his mentions from fans who were still loving Diego in his most recent video. He looked at the man next to him, sleeping peacefully and looking beautifully innocent despite his scars and muscles. Klaus ran his knobby finger along the scar that wrapped around his skull, wondering where it came from. On a somewhat whim, he googled ‘boyfriend tag’ questions for his channel.  _ Oh.  _ Some of these would require some more, well  _ research, _ before they could answer correctly. Klaus giggled softly to himself, causing Diego to stir softly and push his body even closer to Klaus. The tan and rippled skin was soft and glowing in the moonlight and Klaus turned his phone off and buried his face in the soft hair on Diego’s chest before nodding off to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> first of all THANK YOU SO SO MUCH for the amout of hits and comments and kudos you have bestowed upon me and this fic!!! i really can't believe it! you all are so nice and i cry every time i get a nice comment!
> 
> this is the final chapter, only because i have SO MANY OTHER IDEAS for these boys and i don't want to get burnt out on this AU, but I might come back to it at some point
> 
> thank you al soo so sosososo much for everything! i'm glad you read and enjoyed this

 

After Klaus’s announcement, he started putting out more videos and sharing them more with his family. Allison had been subscribed since the beginning and put down her book when she saw a notification that Klaus had uploaded a boyfriend tag video. It had been a few weeks since Diego and Klaus had told the family, and she knew that Klaus’s viewers were a big fan of Diego based on the comments on his videos. She clicked on the video and sat back to watch.

 

_ “Hi Ghosties! Welcome back to my channel and you’ve read the title so also welcome back….Diego!!” Klaus gestured with his hands dramatically on screen, streamer effects shooting across as Diego shuffled onto the screen. The heart eyes that Klaus was giving to him were unmistakable, and he grinned hugely when Diego finally sat down. “This is your first appearance here without makeup on!” _

 

_ “Um, Yeah I-I guess it is?” Diego scratched his head awkwardly. Klaus clapped enthusiastically and turned back to the camera.  _

 

_ “Well obviously, some of you have asked and you are correct, Diego is my boyfriend so I figured we would answer some questions about us!” Klaus looked over expectantly, receiving a confused but excited nod in return.  “First question is, how did we meet?” _

 

_ Diego laughed, shaking his head. “Well I suppose you could say, ‘old friends’?” _

 

_ Klaus looked at him fondly “We grew up together. Guess something was always there but we never really saw it.” Diego looked back at him and they both smiled.  _

 

Allison smiled too, seeing the love in her two brothers’ eyes. She continued watching as they talked about each other’s favorite foods  _ (Don’t lie, Diego I know you sneak out to get mom’s cookies every night _ ) and the favorite moments with each other( _ Definitely when you told Luther he was being haunted when we were 12) _ . It was nice to see the two of them so happy after everything their family had been through. 

 

_ “The final question…”Klaus blushed furiously. “Who tops?” _

 

_ “W-wh-what??” Diego stuttered and blushed too. _

Allison closed her phone, not really needing to know THAT much about her brothers’ sex life. At that precise moment, Klaus himself came tumbling into the sitting room from upstairs, his beauty school bag over his shoulder and muttering to himself.

 

“Oh hey Al. I’m off to class, might need you later to be a face to paint on.” Klaus muttered, waving halfly with his ‘goodbye’ hand. 

 

“Klaus wait!” Allison stood up. “I’m really happy for you. And Diego. But you seem really happy with school and everything else.”   
  
“I am.” Klaus gave her his crooked smile and a wink. “Gotta start using my boyfriend to get my views up, huh?”   
  
“Oh shut up I can see you’re crazy about each other.” Allison shook her head and shooed him away.

 

\------

 

Klaus’s channel continued to grow, he gained more confidence on and off camera. He collected more and more sobriety chips. He graduated from beauty school and started doing freelance and special events. His YouTube strayed from only beauty to occasional vlogs or short videos catching Diego dancing in his room. His fans and comments all loved Diego and his stutter when he did Klaus’s voiceover and his unexpectedly smooth dance moves. 

 

The whole family gathered around and watched the channel subscriber count crawl over the one million mark one evening. They had all taken their turns being one of the subjects in Klaus’s videos, good sports through all the challenges and Q&A’s. Luther popped a bottle of sparkling cider and Diego kissed Klaus’s cheek. The others cheered and clapped as Klaus smiled modestly. He had been keeping the video that he was doing for this milestone a secret from his family, and they were all curious to see what would be revealed later. 

 

The next day Diego was working a punching bag at the gym when he heard the chime of his notifications to alert him that Klaus had posted his video. He saw the title and immediately raced out to his car, speeding home. He found Klaus in his/their room, huddled on the bed and staring at his computer. He was watching as the views and comments of his latest video, ‘My Life as an Addict, 1M sub story’ climbed up and up. Diego nodded at the empty space next to Klaus on the bed, where Ben no doubt was keeping him company.

 

“Hey. Babe, I’m so proud of you.” Diego pulled the lanky man into his arms. He held him as the other just breathed against his chest. “If anyone has shit to talk to you. They come to me. You know that, right?”

 

“I do.” Klaus looked up, his eyes only a little bit watery. “I do know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> if you want to join the kliego discord and join the madness and be part of my writing process hit me up on twitter @_AMAMOT!


End file.
